dual personalities

Tag: gratitude

October 25, 2012

A laurel and hardy handshake

by chuckofish

Earlier in the week my students surprised me with a party celebrating my 10 years at my flyover university. I was completely taken by surprise, which considering there were nearly 700 people keeping the secret, is pretty amazing. They gave me a lovely corsage, flowers and a very large cake (which quickly disappeared).

Thankfully I did not cry. But I was reminded of how grateful I am to have my job and how blessed I am to work with such wonderful and kind people. It is easy in this world to feel taken for granted and under appreciated, isn’t it? It is a good thing to tell people thank you and well done and I love you.

So your assignment today is to smile at your colleagues and your students and the checker in the grocery store. Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

6 Comments
October 2, 2012

Just stop all that

by chuckofish

Despite the spelling mistake and questionable grammar, I think Joyce Meyer is right on, don’t you?

So here is the thought for today: Embrace the life you have!

4 Comments
June 28, 2012

Lest we forget

by chuckofish

Earlier this week the boy was a volunteer escort on an “Honor Flight” to Washington D.C. You can read all about it on his blog here.

This is an awesome program. Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. They transport veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials. Top priority is given to the senior veterans – World War II survivors, along with those other veterans who may be terminally ill. Check out their website here.

Pretty cool, don’t you think?

3 Comments
April 27, 2012

The simple things

by chuckofish

I am a morning person. My favorite time of day is early in the morning, after I have done my NordicTrack time and my husband has left for work. I have the house to myself to putter to my hearts content before (and while) I get ready to return to the salt mines.

I clean up the kitchen. I water my plants. I stack the magazines.

Today I swiffered the ceiling fan blades in my bedroom (and, boy, did they need it!).

I looked at my birthday cards from last week.

I went outside and cut some flowers.

There are buds on the peonies (and ants).

There is coffee.

“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance)

5 Comments
March 28, 2012

Gone, and a cloud in my heart

by chuckofish

Well, daughter #1 has come to town and gone back to NYC. Heavy sigh. She posted about her visit here and I can hardly improve on it. Thank goodness for daughters and daughter-to-be, right?

4 Comments
January 2, 2012

A new year’s discipline

by chuckofish

Gratitude … goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
-Henri J. M. Nouwen

1 Comment
December 29, 2011

Just saying

by chuckofish

Siblings are one of our greatest gifts. Take a moment to be thankful for yours if you are lucky enough to have one or two. As the Rt. Rev. Desmond Tutu said, “You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”

2 Comments